A new, modern fullscreen for Gnome Shell

[Josh Leverette <coder543 gmail com>]

Attached is a screenshot of me playing Starcraft II in a jury-rigged means of achieving the fullscreen mode I think is so much fun to use in practice. Currently, my wine configuration disables window decorations and has a virtual desktop that's a few pixels shorter than my desktop, so it automagically appears like this. I've been able to achieve a similar effect using Steel Storm II: Burning Retribution, and the game play works fantastically in both setups.

Advantages:

• The absolute-black color of the bar does not bother the eyes, your brain writes it off as not disturbing the full screen effect.
• You have instant access to the current time and day, and it just feels like a good general system overview, and it feels like a dashboard for you while you're in game, giving you an overview of your system.
• It's a consistent appearance in line with when you're on the desktop normally.
• If you tap the SuperKey/WindowsKey, you can instantly switch away from the game without delay on the Wine game, and switch tasks. (the native Steel Storm game does not allow this.)
• From a gamer's perspective, these things make it more fun to play Starcraft II on Linux than on Windows. I would love to see this extended as the default fullscreen mode (but a preference option would probably be needed in system settings), and it would be amazing if the superkey escape could be enforced in all fullscreen apps, finally allowing a way out of games. As it is, the mouse is fully captured so there is no risk of hitting the Activities hot corner or any of that.

-- 

Sincerely,

    Josh

Attachment: Screenshot at 2011-10-31 14_02_32p.jpg
Description: JPEG image